In a recent post mariner cited many daily tasks that, in earlier times, were not automated as they are today; the reader may remember the reference to darning socks. These tasks took time, sometimes inordinate time, just to accomplish a day in one’s life. In the post, it was relatively easy to speculate on the differences in the industrial world and in daily materialism expedited by technology. What is more important both to self and to society is what twenty-first century speed has done to core values like religion and cultural ethos.

For Christians and sophists, has the reader ever read the Holy Bible cover to cover? If so, the reader is a rare individual. How long has it been since a Book in the Bible has been reread or a thread of parables has been revisited?

Do not chastise one’s self. It is how one must live in a time when the number of daily decisions and events is continuous compared to the recent life even of one’s parents. Further, via the Internet and satellite technology, today one’s decisions virtually affect many more lives and many more circumstances and immediately influence an entire world’s knowledge of reality. Simply turning on a television launches the marketing world into action.

It is hard to imagine a life when large amounts of daily time passed and there were no conversations, no interactive decisions and no interaction with society. It wasn’t so long ago; it was the life of a significant number of folks just seventy years ago. There was both time and need to belong to simple gatherings with people one didn’t see every day; the church picnic was an important event; specialized clubs existed to expand interests and share experiences: stamp club, coin club, knitting club, garden club, etc. There were service organizations like the Lions, the Masons and the Shriners.

True, many of these organizations still exist. However, in the past these groups were the main event in socialization, politics and religion – not to mention friendship, courtship and extended family visits during the holidays. Reunions were a central event. All these interactive examples suffer today. Church attendance has fallen mightily; the club phenomenon has been replaced by social media; special interests have moved from clubs to search engines. Vacant time that once was used for the chores of daily life has been replaced by time with the television, the Internet and the smartphone. Who needs to have actual face time with other people? There just isn’t time. Easier to turn on Facebook.

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What has this fast world done to one’s personal religion? Religion is the place where one becomes a member of the universe; it is an internal, personal experience that comes from believing not in the transactional world of electronics but in a world driven by love, emotion, compassion and respect for all that exists. It is the one true experience that makes one feel valuable in spite of worldly circumstances or a dead device battery.

There are many visions about religion and there are many religions. How does one truncate these beliefs into a straightforward, functional, brief but important part of the fast world?

As noted, public ritual, clubs and gatherings are not as central to society as they were in the earlier years of the last century. Yet these persons-to-persons activities are necessary for a wholesome life. Thumb punching and finger scrolling may be a successful distraction that does not require management of ethos, ethics, human bonding or even civility but most of the human brain exists to interpret meaningful and rewarding relationships – not with video games but with other humans.

If one were able to throw all the virtues of modern religions into a kettle and boil them down to a hearty stock, it likely would be rich in compassion. Compassion is the opposite of identity politics and tribalism. On the ground in everyday life, the current political, belligerent experience is caustic; prejudice breeds prejudice; fragmentation breeds elitism, racism and school shootings. It seems conflict is not a creative force.

Everyone knows that populism is strictly a destructive force. Its objective is to disrupt, damage and even destroy a conflicted social situation. But it is not populism’s job to restore. Populism exists purely in a transactional world, i.e., tit for tat, my way or the highway, this way only, dissidents are useless criminals (“Lock her up!”).

The prescription for curing transactional conflict is to make unity the first value. Unity is a religion word. Society’s job today is to uncover and elevate what is common among even the most contraposed individuals or groups. An individual human creature cannot be separated from eons of planetary life and environment. Humans are humans living the same reality, sharing the same three dimensions, sharing the same universe-given resources.

Even in unity’s simplest form, courtesy, one can sense personal comfort – that an individual has the confidence, perspective and commitment to be courteous even in the midst of consternation. Unity is a religion word.

Pass it forward.

Ancient Mariner

If one is as old as Elijah Cummings, one knows in their heart he was a warrior, a champion and good for his word through calamity, obfuscation and threat. The House will be less for his absence.

Regular readers know mariner is fond of short, meaningful poems. A poem by Parren Mitchell, a US Representative from Maryland in the 1970s and 80s has been in the news because Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) recited it on his first day in the House. It was repeated in the news in light of Representative Cummings death on Thursday. It is a classic short poem with profound meaning. Just in case the reader missed it, here it is:

‘I only have a minute, 60 seconds in it. Forced upon me, I did not choose it, but I know that I must use it. Give account if I abuse it, suffer if I lose it. Only a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it.’

Rest well, Congressman.

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Something mariner’s generation must turn over to the millennials and Zs is climate change. If an elderly person, especially an elected person, has savings and investments to live on, odds are there is oil stock in it somewhere; being realistic, one would not want to compromise one’s financial future unnecessarily. But it is necessary. What the old timers should do is pass the torch by electing millennials to government positions whenever possible. The nice, old, mannerly, gray-haired senator one knows and loves has become a detriment to the world’s population. Not because the senator is evil but, like all other new worldly situations, his generation doesn’t relate to the day-to-day future about which millennials are acutely aware and know it will affect them greatly.

One way to permanently fix the generation problem in government is to have term limits. Mariner would base them specifically on age; most, however, measure term limits by number of terms. Only one presidential candidate has specifically advocated term limits as a platform: Tom Steyer.

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Shadows

There are two shadow governments worming in and around this Constitutional Federal Republic. The first is public knowledge: the corporate lobbyists. They are better organized and better funded and get much more done than Congress ever will. The second shadow government is Donald’s coterie of thieves, easily bought opportunists and antiestablishment troublemakers. Only in recent days has the public learned how much Donald has twisted foreign policy into a personal agenda uninfluenced by the Federal bureaucracy. Now, he has performed a blunder he cannot hide in his distracting roadshow: He has upset the Middle East in an irreparable manner. Nancy Pelosi is right: all roads lead to Putin (or existing Trump Hotels). It shouldn’t take many more revelations before Donald may be eligible for charges of treason.

Parren Mitchell’s poem holds true. That minute when one casts one’s vote is a minute that may be lost if abused and the nation will suffer – for eternity.

Ancient Mariner

Subtle changes cannot be ignored. For example, some of my family and friends think I’m crazy; some mollycoddle me; my associates in life consider me eccentric. The sensual Adonis that was here a little while ago has left, leaving behind only that which is diseased and broken.

Too often, my rational thought doesn’t square with the rational thought of others. Sometimes I want to try something new that already has been tried – I just have forgotten it.

Writing the post has been fun and even invigorating at times. I’m sure I’ve said everything I wanted to say, maybe more than once. Most subscribers never received sent email notifications anyway.

As to the alter egos, Chicken Little is in a rehab center; Amos, complete with a very hoarse voice, has gone to Mallorca to do some sailing. Guru can visit another universe at any time.

I worry a lot, though. I’m concerned for the future of my children and their children. I’m concerned about a democracy whose citizens do not want to share the work of maintaining a responsive democracy. I’m concerned that the planet has decided to move on, leaving the mammalian age to go it alone. And allowing Artificial Intelligence to infuse with our lives as if we were genetic twins; coupled with uncontrolled data corporations, is to think our lives are as real as those of the humans locked in their caskets in The Matrix.

Along with my fellow oldies, the world we know is rapidly disappearing. Scruples, economics, human interplay, even courtship is changing; I recently saw a middle-aged couple sitting in a restaurant booth; for an hour she was engrossed in her smartphone while the husband just sat there. So much for intimacy. But the oldies aren’t changing. They don’t relate to the new culture very well.

So it’s time to retire the Ancient Mariner.

It’s time to hang up the cleats (John Unitas’ high cut type, you know).

Ancient Mariner

AKA Skipper

(skipper@iowa-mariner.com)

One of the hoard (Elizabeth Warren) caught mariner’s attention when she announced an overhaul of the money issue in Washington:

“The goal of these measures is straightforward: To take power away from the wealthy and the well-connected in Washington and put it back where it belongs — in the hands of the people.”

It strikes down the whole lobby relationship and puts constraints on legislators who mix with private consortiums to discuss legislation. There is no doubt she will restore the Consumer Protection Agency to its role as a watchdog over bank behavior before Donald castrated it.

Mariner has not found a preferred candidate among the hoard but Warren’s direct style of planning separates her from Biden and Bernie, one a traditionalist and the other an ideologue. At least one can picture the legislation in her descriptions.

Another interesting comparison will be between Buttigieg and Steyer, both scholars of notable degree (Tom Steyer has qualified for the October debate). While Warren has taken on the plutocratic issue, Steyer is targeting term limits, the Electoral College and other structural issues.

The military is behind Tulsi Gabbard; she is a classic progressive and distinct from other candidates in her Hindu religion. Like Warren, big banks must be dismantled.

Beto O’rourke would make a great preacher. His appeals to moral integrity are meaningful.

It’s probably mariner’s old ears but Cory Booker never targets his motives; a master of rhetoric.

Kamala Harris is a forthright candidate and would “set things right” at the White House but many men may not like her style.

Conversely, Bill Maher may have said it best that Amy Klobuchar may be the sole survivor in a conflicted and destructive battle. Amy has firm views but a smooth manner.

Andrew Yang and Julian Castro would make excellent cabinet secretaries. Marianne Williamson must be a truly interesting candidate to talk to but her spiritualist manner won’t control the gang in Congress.

The rest should run for other federal offices or cash out.

Ancient Mariner